I've been planning and talking about brewing an Adnams Ghost Ship clone for a couple of years now, and have now finally got around to brewing version 1

Aim: To produce something close to the real thing and also to try and build some consistency into my brewing process on the Grainfather, because after 5 previous brews of varying styles and brewlengths, I still don't feel as though I can confidently hit my numbers yet. Coupled with this, the Grainfather recipe software has changed since I started using it May this year, so you now have to dial in a much higher efficiency value to achieve the same OG. Maybe this is all a marketing thing because the same recipe when inputted into Brewmate, shows a drop of 7% in Brewhouse Efficiency.

Anyway, this brewday went well yesterday and as I was potentially expecting, I overshot my planned OG by 2 points, so there's the first adjustment for v2.

I know that to get the best match to the real beer, I should be using the Adnams yeast, but I have chosen to start with S-04 until I get somewhere near, because I find this yeast to be very reliable and I don't think that I have got the skills to confidently produce enough yeast from the dregs from a mini cask at this time.

I will update this post as the brew finishes and conditions.................

Bought a bottle of Adnams Tally Ho! the other day and noticed it was bottle conditioned, got a little excited, but thought I would check with the brewery whether this was the real deal or a bottling strain. Fergus very kindly replied saying it was a bottling strain as the real thing doesn't "sediment well". Just in case someone noticed this and thought aha! Adnams clone brews here we go.

Bought a bottle of Adnams Tally Ho! the other day and noticed it was bottle conditioned, got a little excited, but thought I would check with the brewery whether this was the real deal or a bottling strain. Fergus very kindly replied saying it was a bottling strain as the real thing doesn't "sediment well". Just in case someone noticed this and thought aha! Adnams clone brews here we go.

Like a bit of Tally Ho!

I know the way to brew a proper clone, will be to use Adnams yeast, but I would rather keep the yeast side of things simple at this stage

I had a couple of pints of this brew from my keg last night after it had been conditioning for a little over 2 weeks.

The clarity is very poor from the keg, even though I used gelatin in the same way that I always do, and I also checked one of the bottles that have been indoors since bottling and they are just as cloudy. S-04 would have normally dropped clear in the bottle by now, so I am starting to wonder if I actually added the Irish Moss into the last 15mins of the boil

That aside, it is a very moreish beer at the moment and I could have easily downed a couple more pints, but it was pi$$ing it down and my keggerator is in the garage which is a fair way from my house, so I decided to stay dry The hop aroma and taste was very nice and the combo seemed to work well IMO, I think that the water profile has certainly helped here, as I sometimes struggle to get that hit I'm after, but I have never used this profile before, so definately something positve learned there.

The body seems a bit heavy and coupled with the strong flavour of the Crystal Rye, it's more like an Amber Ale (not a bad thing, but not what I'm after).

It certainly isn't anything near Adnams Ghost Ship, so I will make the following tweaks for the version 2 whenever that gets brewed -

The Crystal Rye is quite dominant in it's flavour and colour, so I will dial this back to 3%

I will also tweak the base malt back a little if required, to hit 1.046 OG

The mash temperature will go from 67C to 66C to help with a lower FG

I am going to leave the hop schedule as is, because I don't want to fiddle with too much in one go

The bittering seems a little high to my taste, so I will back this off a little too (maybe linked to the water profile?)

I will certainly enjoy drinking this beer and will look forward to planning v2

That aside, it is a very moreish beer at the moment and I could have easily downed a couple more pints, but it was pi$$ing it down and my keggerator is in the garage which is a fair way from my house, so I decided to stay dry